Still Looking for Revamped Transmetropolitan
- Posted by Johanna on June 17, 2008 at 7:37 am
- Category: Graphic Novel News
In November 2006, DC Comics announced that they would be rearranging the Transmetropolitan collections in Spring 2007. It didn’t happen, with the plans delayed to Spring 2008.
Now that it’s summer, has anything heard anything more about them? Last year, the story was that they were waiting to sell down the existing inventory, but now I’m wondering if that was a self-fulfilling problem — perhaps people are waiting for new editions, so the stock isn’t moving, so the editions keep getting delayed? Or maybe the series was too much of its time, and the continuing interest is no longer there?
I can speculate all day, but the reason I’m asking is this: It occurred to me that I’d like to reread Transmetropolitan now that Ellis no longer has a major online bulletin board and the cult adoration has died down. (That gets in my way, when too many people tell me how fabulous someone is — my stubborn streak means no one can live up to over-praise.) At the time the issues were coming out, I really liked the series, but I quit following around #5 or so. I’d like to try again, reconsidering all the political themes now that the actual elections he was thinly fictionalizing are over with. And if I’m going to do that, I don’t want to get collections that will soon be out of date.
6 Responses to “Still Looking for Revamped Transmetropolitan”
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June 17, 2008 at 11:39 am
I own all the original singles, but I’d love to have a nice series of collected editions. I keep hoping that maybe they’re holding off to see how the Starman Omnibus do and then repackage Transmet into that format if it’s successful.
Three to five books is more than enough, not the 10 or so that are currently out there….
June 17, 2008 at 11:42 am
For what it’s worth, the actual election he was most directly fictionalizing was in 1972, so it’s been over for quite a while…
June 17, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I been a personal fan of the first half of transmetropolitian, but the book falls apart in the second half, turning into what amounts to a very shallow superhero book in a fantastic multifaceted world.
It’s still strong enough as a work that it’s a shame you haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet.
June 17, 2008 at 3:21 pm
It’s now scheduled for a January 2009 release, per Amazon (which recently added on a whole slew of DC solicitations).
June 17, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Hunh, it never occurred to me to look there. Thanks!
Jason, really? I thought there was a lot of talk about the then-current British elections.
June 18, 2008 at 1:34 pm
There was some of Blair in the Smiler, no doubt, but the broad plot strokes of the election storyline were based very much on Hunter S. Thompson’s FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL ‘72, about the 1972 Democratic Primary and the McGovern-Nixon election. It’s all twisted up, of course, which is what makes it fiction, but you can find a lot of parallels between the two works, and see clearly in some places where Ellis was inspired.
Visually, if you look at The Beast (the sitting President in Transmetropolitan), he’s clearly Nixon, and The Smiler is Blair by way of an evil Bobby Kennedy.